Waterford Wedgwood chairman Sir Anthony O'Reilly and his brother-in-law Peter Goulandris may see their stake in the troubled luxury goods maker rise to as much as 60.5 per cent if shareholders fail to respond to the company's fourth cash call in three years.

The billionaire and Mr Goulandris, Waterford's deputy chairman, agreed to subscribe to stock in respect of their 51.3 per cent shareholding at a cost of nearly €31 million, with Davy Stockbrokers underwriting the rest, the company said earlier this month.

The prospectus for the open share offer, distributed to shareholders yesterday, indicated Sir Anthony and Mr Goulandris could raise their combined stake gradually, depending on certain conditions, if investors continued to show the reluctance to buy stock they expressed in the previous three issues.

Davy retains the right to sell any shares it still holds after a 12-month period to Birchfield Holdings, an investment vehicle owned by Sir Anthony and Mr Goulandris, at the issue price.

Loss-making Waterford aims to raise €60.2 million to aid its recovery, offering current investors three new shares for every 13 existing shares at 6 cent apiece. The stock closed at 4.5 cent in Dublin yesterday and has slumped 25 per cent since the start of this year.

The closing date for receipt of application forms under the open offer is July 19th and the new stock units will start dealings on July 24th.

Sir Anthony and his in-laws, the Goulandris family, more than doubled their stake in Waterford from 24.6 per cent to 51.3 per cent during last year after a large number of shareholders chose not to exercise their rights in a share issue.

The strapped company raised €100 million in the middle of 2005 to pay for a restructuring programme that will see more than 2,000 jobs axed in return for cost savings of €90 million a year.